All About Symbian's sister site All About N-Gage is back and bringing you all the game-related news coming out of today's huge Go Play launch event by Nokia in London! Head on over there right now to see the revamped site, which is ready to inform you about all the developments with the Next Generation of N-Gage games on S60 3rd Edition smartphones.
Nokia today announced that it is working with Vivendi Games Mobile to bring crash Bandicoot games to its next generation N-Gage gaming platform. Crash Bandicoot see you saving the world with a marsupial over a variety of levels with a mixture of action and comedy. Currently there is no information on which games will be coming to the platform or when.
If you've ever used the N-Gage Arena on the original N-Gage or N-Gage QD, you might like to check out the Arena's Charter Member Program which is intended for existing Arena members so they can get "special recognition in the new N-Gage Arena". There are also a load of prizes on offer including Next Gen games (when they become available) as well as Next Gen compatible phones.
The official N-Gage blog has now confirmed that the new N-Gage logo seen at the GCDC is indeed genuine. They've also released an animated version of the new logo (click Save As and open it in Windows Media Player). The animation is reminiscent of the one Nintendo used when launching the Wii. This may be a clue as to Nokia's intentions with the Next Gen N-Gage: to appeal to casual gamers and expand the phone game market, just as the Wii has done with the console game market.
Nokia is one of the main sponsors of the GC Developers Conference 2007 in Leipzig, Germany, through their N-Gage gaming brand. Nokia's Diarmuid Feeny gave a keynote speech at the event, discussing the potential growth of mobile gaming which could be brought about by making mobile games higher quality, and by making it easier to buy the games in the first place. (via Future Watch) Also, Nokia appears to have come up with a new curvier logo for the Next Gen N-Gage platform, according to the GCDC sponsors' page.
The FCC website (US regulator) currently has some information about the Nokia N95 8GB on its website. Hardware changes include a reworked back section with the removal of the camera lens cover to allow for a bigger battery. The top slide media keys are now slightly raised and the phone itself is black. There are also some interesting hints about the software in the manual with references to N-Gage gaming and the Nokia Music store. Read on for more.
Nokia today announced that games developer I-play will be delivering a number of games for the N-Gage platform. The first two titles to be released will be World Rally Championship and Super Mah Jong. I-play is set to concentrate on casual games providing games which are 'easy to play, but difficult to master with dip in and dip out playability'. Read on for details.
So, you've got a 332 MHz top-of-the-range smartphone from 2007 with 3D graphics acceleration hardware and a 16 million colour screen. What do you do with that? Obviously, you'd use it to emulate 8-bit home computers and consoles from 1982! Another winning feature from Krisse...
In another far sighted editorial, Krisse looks at TV-out gaming on the Nokia N95, seeing how well a selection of top games work on the big screen and with the aid of a Bluetooth keyboard as controller. Of course, what's really needed is a Bluetooth joystick as well...
Steve Litchfield has been getting twitchy feet over his reliance on Outlook as the PIM partner to his smartphones and he's overjoyed to find a Web-based PIM that's totally cross platform, that supports just about every smartphone ever made and which is completely free! In this walkthrough, he explains how to set Mobical up and start syncing.
The Nokia E90's free 3D driving game Global Race: Raging Thunder is rather splendid and makes use of the E90's 3D acceleration hardware. But as many blogs (including iGadget and Symbian Freak) have recently pointed out, the game also works near-perfectly on any S60 3rd Edition phone with a 3D chip, which currently means the N95, N93 and N93i. You can download Global Race completely free from Nokia's E90 software support page.
So, you've got a 332 MHz top-of-the-range smartphone from 2007 with 3D graphics acceleration hardware and a 16 million colour screen. What do you do with that? Obviously, you'd use it to emulate 8-bit home computers and consoles from 1982! Another winning feature from Krisse...
In another far sighted editorial, Krisse looks at TV-out gaming on the Nokia N95, seeing how well a selection of top games work on the big screen and with the aid of a Bluetooth keyboard as controller. Of course, what's really needed is a Bluetooth joystick as well...